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Topics: News, US News, UK News, Celebrity, Tom Holland
Kit Roberts
Topics: News, US News, UK News, Celebrity, Tom Holland
Tom Hollander has revealed that he was once mistakenly sent a payslip meant for Tom Holland, and was stunned by the amount.
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the two actors have rather similar names, something Hollander has called 'difficult' while chatting to Seth Meyers this week.
See what he had to say:
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Hollander is known for his role as main antagonist Cutler Beckett in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, as well as roles in The Night Manager, BBC comedy Rev with Olivia Coleman, and as ineffectual MP Simon Foster in political comedy In the Loop.
In other words, Hollander is no stranger to the big screen.
But even a seasoned pro like Hollander found himself shocked when a confusion between his name and that of Avengers star Tom Holland led to him receiving a payslip for Holland's first royalty from Avengers.
The actor went on Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote new series FEUD: Capote vs The Swans.
Speaking to host Seth Meyers about the frequent confusion, he joked: “Yeah, it’s been very difficult. ’Cause, you know, I was here first. But he’s enormously famous.”
He revealed: “I’m introduced to somebody’s very excited, then very confused and disappointed children."
Ouch.
But it was the moment that he was mistakenly sent the payslip which proved most sobering for Hollander, when the pair were briefly with the same agency.
He said: “People in the accounts department of my agency got confused, and we were with the same agency briefly."
The actor described how he had been visiting a friend and feeling very pleased with himself as he had just been paid £30,000 for a BBC show.
But that feeling soon evaporated when he checked his emails to find an email telling him how much money Holland had been paid on his first Avengers royalty.
“It was an astonishing amount of money", he said. "It was not his salary, it was his first box-office bonus. Not the whole box-office bonus, the first one."
So how much was it?
Hollander obviously didn't go into specifics, but did reveal: "It was more money than I’d ever... it was a seven-figure sum."
The actor continued: “He was 20, or something. So my feeling of smugness that you remember I had in the first half disappeared completely. But that’s showbiz!”
It's not the only time that similar names have caused confusion in showbiz.
Actor Richard E Grant revealed in his book A Pocketful of Happiness that early in his career when he went by just Richard Grant he was contacted by a veteran shakespearean actor with the same name.
The pair agreed he would add the E to differentiate.
Some years later, after Grant achieved success, he was contacted by the widow of the now deceased Richard Grant, who told him he could take the name now if he wanted.